[jah]

You can also use the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) as a test bed for chess engines. The interface is telnet-based, so it's pretty easy to experiment with and learn. There's also "zippy" mode in xboard that allows you to connect your engine to FICS .

The commands below will login as a guest and display all of the computer accounts. Use the finger command to find info about an account.

  telnet freechess.org
  g <ENTER>
  who C<ENTER>
  finger ACCOUNT

Sadly, FICS has been dying a slow death for the past 10 years ... but there are plenty of idle CPU accounts waiting for an opponent.